Monday, November 5, 2007

I did it! I'm just not sure what "it" is yet. I graduated from About's guide program and will now be the guide for the new "American Food" site. I still have to complete a certain amount of content before it goes live in a week or so. Once it does go live, I will have a better idea of how the balance between the two sites will work. As those of you that visit About.com's sites, all the guides have regularly updated blogs. So, eventually you will be able to get your daily-recommended amount of Chef John from two sources.

Good News, Bad News

The bad news first; for the next week or so, I will pretty much will be working exclusively on finishing the American Foods site. I will also be filming some video clips for About, but for the near future no "Food Wishes only" clips. I will, of course, post the About clips I've already done for them as soon as they go live (like the Tuna al Tonno). I will be posting an Escargot video that just aired. Mmm…. snails, I mean, mmm… garlic butter!

The goods news is hopefully the income from the About site, along with the clips I produce for them, will be enough to keep this old chef out of a real job in a professional kitchen (60 hour work week = no blogging), and will allow me to continue to grow and expand this site, and it's foodie resources. Once the About site is build, it's just a matter of maintaining it, and I will be able to get back to a normal schedule, except now I will be able to pay my bills with money, instead of ravioli!

Culinary School Update

Yes, I still plan on putting all the large corporate culinary school out of business. Unless, of course they make me a huge offer to buy my site. I am working with someone right now in determining whether the course should be done as online classes, or as a collection of DVDs. As far as a time frame, I don't expect to have anything available until April 08. This also is related to the newly found income sources, as I will be able to afford to take off some time and just work on the culinary course, as I have done in acquiring the About gig(s).

And the Winner is….Me!

For the second consecutive month I have won the coveted iFoods.tv "Member of the Month" competition! I didn't announce anything the first time I won (I wanted to make sure it wasn't a fluke), but now that I've won two months in a row, I'm going to start rubbing the other competitors faces in it! If you want to check out the site,click this link. It's run by Niall Harbison, one of Ireland's best chefs, and they award points for uploading video clips and photos, etc. Quite frankly, I have crushed the field thus far.

Googlicious

I would like to thank Google, and their army of robots (that will eventually take over the world, and enslave us all) for raising my page rank to a 5 out of 10!! No, I don't really know what that means either, but hey, 5 is higher than 4, right? If any web-marketer techno geeks care to explain the ranking to us normal folk, please do.

19 comments:

Very cool Chef John! I'll definitely miss your regular posts here but I'm sure you'll make it worth our while to wait until you finish the site for about.com. I've already made a couple of your dishes and they've turned out to be very easy and successful. Thanks!

I know ever culture has it's starch that goes with nearly every meal. I'm guessing that in Europe, bread goes with everything. I grew up in Japan so I can eat rice with ANYTHING. Rice with fish, rice with all sorts of stews and curries (even with potatoes in it); I put rice with everything.

Which type of starch do you put with meals?If it's bread, do you make your own bread? It seems like such a task. I don't think I've seen you make bread, but there have been so many videos I can't know for sure.

chef john the page rank thing from google is basically a qualification for your website it`s defined by the number of links that points to your website and other stuff.... the higher your pagerank better position you`ll get when someon searches in google for example... for food got it? if you put in google "links: foodwishes.com" you`ll see how many links you have nowmore info about pagerank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank

keep the good work i just hope you get time for making videos as ofen as you did

hey chef John! haven't commented in awhile.lOl "mmm...snails/ garlic butter". did u know snails are not native to California, well they aren't. Hye mayb u could post that chicken enchilada recipe or that mac and cheese one? Or any old videos would be fine. Congrats!! Yeah don't forget about us! I visit your site like it's part of my job. Thnx

Of course you won! You are by far the best ifoods chef. This one guy kept wanting me to use iceberg lettuce in everything. Can you believe it? Iceberg! (I know it has some uses I'm just yanking iceberg's chain)

Congrats on the iFoods.tv and the Google things! I'm really looking forward to the culinary course. I'd vote for DVDs, though. I can't watch any of the about.com videos, only the ones on youtube (I can't download a newer version of Flash at work--required for about.com, and being a ruralite I have a really crummy dial-up connection so it would take 3 days to watch a video at home). Hmmm...maybe I should make a donation!

Nice blog you have going here. I will have to check out some of those videos that people are talking about. The brulee looks great. I can understand the time restraints from the professional chef to online blogger. Regards John

Well darn...your posts will be missed during the time that you are otherwise occupied...

But way bigger than the darn is a YAHOO and CONGRATULATIONS!! It sounds as if you are managing to live your dream more and more, step by step, and in my book that is always cause for celebration. Besides since I'm a newcomer to your blog I have sooooo many past video recipes to keep me busy that I think I will have plenty to keep me busy while you are completing your other project. So thanks for being such an inspiration. I watch your videos and say to myself, "I can do that and I WANT to do that!!", which is just sooo cool.